Diary of a herbalist: December 2003
Bellegarde 22 December 2003
We'll start it a little early. This yearbook 2004 starts today on 22 December 2003. It's 7 o'clock in the evening. We are in Bellegarde-en-Diois, the first day in our empty French house, on the wood stove, staring at the primal lambs, outside the first blowing snowflakes in the East Wind. Almost all the primal elements gather to tell us a story. In recent weeks, the south of France has been plagued by floods and landslides. Here in Bellegarde it seemed high and dry to me, but still the water in the hotel seeped through the walls and shifted a small mountain with house and all. In the town of Die, the bridge over the Drôme was no longer available and we had to make a three-quarter detour via the Quint Valley, to reach our destination. But still we come here for pleasure in nature, for beauty, tranquility and of course for the plants. Nature is not only peaceful but also terrible beauty. And well, too!
December is for me and for many others, the month of reflection on nature and man. This is possible for me by walking outside and defying the elements or by reading within a book about philosophical nature (figments of man? ). For example, the book 'With open zinnennen' by Ton Lemaire on nature, landscape and earth. Modern man thinks that the earth belongs to him, but would not belong to man before the earth.
Poem 1
I recognize the oak in
the smoke from the chimney
